The Updates

Lacrymosa

Her following is small and select – you don't choose to become her worshipper, but find yourself driven to it when all else is lost and you have nowhere else to turn. When all else is lost and no chance remains she beckons to you and welcomes you in.

For those who follow her there is power to be had, but it is the power that comes from pain and takes its toll on those who wield it. It is used when no other will do, when the cause is hopeless and last chances have passed. Perhaps you may achieve what you thought you wanted, but you may find it wasn't what you wanted at all. Some worship her knowing that she understands what they are going through, they gain some comfort from that perhaps, but most find themselves consumed by the same obsession that fills her and will never find true solace.

In tales her barge is depicted as a maze of endless corridors with mirrors on every wall. You turn round every corner looking for help, for comfort but it's never there – you see figures and cry out for help but the words fall silent on your lips and you see that the one you would turn to for help is just a reflection of yourself and cannot aid you.

Maybe you might meet another wandering those halls, maybe you would meet the lady herself but twists and turns confuse those who would enter and the spiral down to isolation, the feeling of being utterly alone, continues forever.

Rumoured Avatars

The Maid: She is the essence embodied of all who are sorrowful for that which will never happen. The love that will never be. The family that she'll never have. The lost hope of the future with nothing to offer within it. She appears to those who have lost something before they ever gained it – the woman who loses her betrothed or the despised who will never be offered a chance at something better.

The Mother: Here is one who has known joy but has had it taken from them. The widow, the parent who lived to bury their child. The betrayed and the disgraced who knew happiness for a time. As a gaunt, greying lady she walks the world – you'll find her with those who have seen their happiness destroyed by war, death and disease. Those who are ill with no hope of recovery are often visited by her for in them there is the strongest sense of bitterness and despair; they have known the heights of joy and can fully appreciate the depths to which they have fallen.

The Crone: She is the woman of regret for things past and that which is too late. The missed opportunity or chance not taken. The possibility that could once have been but which was passed over. She is the one with hindsight to see what could have been and now never will. The old often turn to her and she to them, close to the end of their lives and reminiscing of all they could have achieved but didn't, and now never will.